THE �70-MILLION MANSION: Lakshmi N Mittal, Chairman and CEO, of the LNM Group, has bought a central London house for a stunning price of �70 million ($128.25 million or about Rs 560 crore).

The Non-Resident Indian steel magnate's new house has thus walked into the Guinness Book of Records as the world's most expensive house.

The previous record for the most expensive house was �62.7 million ($114.89 million) for a 1997 sale in Hong Kong. The 12-bedroom mansion located at the prestigious Kensington Palace Gardens has garage space for 20 cars. Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One racing boss, who sold the house to Mittal, had bought it for his wife three years ago.

The Kensington Palace Gardens houses are dubbed Billionaires' Row. Nearby are Kensington Palace and the London home of the Sultan of Brunei. It is also close to Kensington Palace where Princess Diana lived.

Mittal, whose personal wealth is put at �3.5 billion, is the richest Asian in the United Kingdom. He also owns a �9-million mansion on London's Bishop Avenue, and a house on Delhi's Prithviraj Road which is said to have cost him Rs 40 crore. LNM also has a penthouse at Hyde Park and houses in Surabaya, Indonesia, and in Trinidad.